A little strange to write up a bug hunt that was resolved by the ffi upstream already, and not by the hunt itself. OP didn't fix the bug, though identifying that the upgrade was relevant is of some interest. Writing could have been clearer.
15 or so years ago I had a similar journey - a single python interpreter "impossible" segfault in production that turned out to be a bug in glibc realloc, that had already been fixed in an update, we just didn't figure out to even look for one until we'd narrowed it down that far. (We were shipping custom Debian installs on DVD, a fair number of our customer installs weren't internet accessible so casual upgrades were both impossible and unwanted, but it was also a process mistake on my part to not notice the existence of the upgrade sooner.)
Never wrote it up externally because it was already solved and "Debian updates to existing releases are so rare that you really want to pay attention to all of them" (1) was already obvious (2) was only relevant to a really small set of people (3) this somewhat tortured example wasn't going to reach that small set anyway. (Made a reasonable interview story, though.)
LLM slop. Why do people (presumably) take the time to debug something like this, do tests and go to great lengths, but are too lazy to do a little manual writeup? Maybe the hour saved makes up for being associated with publishing AI slop under your own name? Like there is no way the author would have written a text that reads more convoluted than what we have here.
I read it just fine and everything made sense in it.
I would spend similar time debugging this if I were the author. It's a pretty serious bug, a non obvious issue, and would be impossible to connect to the ffi fix unless you already knew the problem.
Sorry, why is this LLM slop? I only got about halfway through because I don’t care about this enough to finish the read, but I don’t see the “obvious LLM” signal you do.
I feel like the “this is AI” crowd is getting ridiculous. Too perfect? Clearly AI. Too sloppy? That’s clearly AI too.
Rarely is there anything concrete that the person claiming AI can point to. It’s just “I can tell”. Same confident assurance that all the teachers trusting “AI detectors” have.
Had me in the first half. But from the "The Microsecond Window" chapter and on...;
> No warning. No error. Just different methods that make no sense.
> This is why write barriers exist. They're not optional extras for C extension authors. They're how you tell the garbage collector: "I'm holding a reference. Don't free this
It's all ChatGPT LinkedIn and Instagram spam type slop. An unfortunate end to an otherwise interesting writeup.
A little strange to write up a bug hunt that was resolved by the ffi upstream already, and not by the hunt itself. OP didn't fix the bug, though identifying that the upgrade was relevant is of some interest. Writing could have been clearer.
The bug that was fixed in upstream manifested differently than what he was experiencing so the journey was to validate it for his case.
OTOH I'm a bit surprised he didn't pull back earlier and suggest to his user to update to the latest version though and let him know.
15 or so years ago I had a similar journey - a single python interpreter "impossible" segfault in production that turned out to be a bug in glibc realloc, that had already been fixed in an update, we just didn't figure out to even look for one until we'd narrowed it down that far. (We were shipping custom Debian installs on DVD, a fair number of our customer installs weren't internet accessible so casual upgrades were both impossible and unwanted, but it was also a process mistake on my part to not notice the existence of the upgrade sooner.)
Never wrote it up externally because it was already solved and "Debian updates to existing releases are so rare that you really want to pay attention to all of them" (1) was already obvious (2) was only relevant to a really small set of people (3) this somewhat tortured example wasn't going to reach that small set anyway. (Made a reasonable interview story, though.)
LLM slop. Why do people (presumably) take the time to debug something like this, do tests and go to great lengths, but are too lazy to do a little manual writeup? Maybe the hour saved makes up for being associated with publishing AI slop under your own name? Like there is no way the author would have written a text that reads more convoluted than what we have here.
> Why do people […] take the time to debug […] but are too lazy to do a little manual writeup[?]
They like to code. They don’t like to write.
I’m not excusing it, but after you asked the question the conclusion seems logical.
I read it just fine and everything made sense in it.
I would spend similar time debugging this if I were the author. It's a pretty serious bug, a non obvious issue, and would be impossible to connect to the ffi fix unless you already knew the problem.
> LLM slop
Is this the new "looks shopped. I can tell by the pixels."?
Sorry, why is this LLM slop? I only got about halfway through because I don’t care about this enough to finish the read, but I don’t see the “obvious LLM” signal you do.
It's clearest in the conclusion.
I still don’t see it.
I feel like the “this is AI” crowd is getting ridiculous. Too perfect? Clearly AI. Too sloppy? That’s clearly AI too.
Rarely is there anything concrete that the person claiming AI can point to. It’s just “I can tell”. Same confident assurance that all the teachers trusting “AI detectors” have.
Had me in the first half. But from the "The Microsecond Window" chapter and on...;
> No warning. No error. Just different methods that make no sense.
> This is why write barriers exist. They're not optional extras for C extension authors. They're how you tell the garbage collector: "I'm holding a reference. Don't free this
It's all ChatGPT LinkedIn and Instagram spam type slop. An unfortunate end to an otherwise interesting writeup.
I don’t get it. Also it reads llmish